damned if you do, but rejoice if you don't.
thoughts on Will & Jada and vilifying women's decisions
Earlier this week, I read a post about a woman loving her choice to be married and childfree. She expressed how beautiful her life is with her husband, both in their mid-forties. The comments on her post were as I expected them to be: disrespectful, degrading, and disappointing to read in 2023.
The overwhelming response described this woman’s experience as incredibly lonely, even though her words were saying the exact opposite. People asked questions like “Who will bury you?” and shared their own experiences of “loving their family,” as if this woman could never do the same since she chose not to extend her family tree. A woman who abandons her journey of motherhood or marriage on the internet has always been seen as an irrational woman, a selfish woman, and a woman who deserves to be interrogated for her choices. Without a partner and a child, her life has zero purpose.
Now humor me with the comparison of these comments toward this childfree woman and the digital uprising against Jada Pinkett Smith. The “bombshell” that her and Will have been separated since 2016 has haunted my existence this week; it’s the type of news that can’t be avoided with the dozens of memes and think pieces that have emerged due to the public mishaps of their relationship.
Most of the commentary casts Jada as the villain, a Black woman with a good Black man that she continually embarrasses and degrades with her every action. This isn’t a surprising narrative since Will Smith has embodied this squeaky clean, beloved image in Hollywood throughout his career up until the infamous slap heard ‘round the world. Even then, it’s hard for the public to grasp that he is a flawed human just as much as Jada is, and the mistakes of a “good” man seem minuscule compared to a woman who seemingly doesn't treat him as “good” as he is.
I don’t want to dwell on the unsavory details of their relationship in this newsletter; there’s enough anger existing on the internet. I never followed this relationship closely, but what actually intrigued me about Jada is recently finding out that she never wanted to be married. According to Jada, her mother, Will, and the pressure of being young and pregnant sent her crying down the aisle.
In this, I find empathy and an understanding of Jada. Her relationship is just another story in a long-lasting narrative of women sacrificing their own goals for men, even those they love dearly. From a bird’s eye view, this is a cautionary tale of mis-matched expectations and societal pressures, and some of these pressures are relatable. While most of us will never know what it feels like to have a publicized relationship, many women have been and will be belittled for their choice to be unmarried and childless. No matter how beautiful they describe their life to be, people will assert that they will be lonely and nobody will bury them or mourn them in their absence.
To avoid critique and to embody what society deems a woman should be, many women conform to this ideal. They accept that the American dream of marriage and a white picket fence is meant to be their dream. They accept that marriage is every woman’s goal, and when you are young and pregnant, there is an obligation to walk down the aisle, even with tears in your eyes, knowing that your female disposition means you must give.
In the comments of the YouTube video above, people expressed how humiliating and emasculating it was for Will to hear his wife say that she never wanted to be married, but what I hear is a misalignment of expectations on both sides. Jada honored Will’s desire to be married, which is an act of love, but nobody sees the sacrifice she made in order to honor a man. They only see her failure to be a conventional Black Love goal that she never aspired to be.
Women, especially Black women, will be questioned and degraded whether they chose marriage, motherhood, or none of the above, but there is a beauty to choosing a life and not having a life be chosen for you. At the beginning of the year, actress Tracy Ellis Ross was a guest on the We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle podcast and discuss with this idea of being chosen:
Being chosen seems to have “nothing to do with who I am, what makes my heart sing, floats my boat, makes me feel safe, makes me feel comfortable, makes me feel good, makes me feel powerful, makes me feel smart. Any of those things.”
She added, "But really it's more about how I might be seen, so that I might be chosen so that my life could mean something as a chosen woman who then gets to have a child and then be a mother and do that for a child.”
I don’t know Jada personally, but I feel for the woman in her mid-twenties who felt pressured to walk down the aisle. Maybe Jada was afraid of how she might be seen not choosing a man who wanted to choose her, of choosing a route less traveled, but we don’t consider these things in a patriarchal society. In this society, women want to be chosen, and we can’t conceive of a differing narrative, no matter how misogynistic that view is. Furthermore, when you’re a Black woman who doesn't want to be chosen by a person characterized as a good man, that’s another level of lunacy to society, mainly within the Black community.
There’s a common phrase that states, “You’re born looking like your parents, but you’ll die looking like your decisions.” As women, if we make decisions based on societal norms and not our authentic desires and values, we end up sacrificing our autonomy and despising our current positions in the world.
Personally, I don’t know if I’ll ever have children (read my thoughts here), but I have the privilege to know my decisions are mine. Not every woman has that choice, and it seems that Jada has discovered her ability to choose over the course of her and Will’s marriage. Maybe you don’t agree with her choices, but both parties seem to support one another.
As a woman, you are damned if you do engage in societal norms that you don’t favor, but it’s okay to rejoice if you don’t. It’s okay to chart a course that makes little sense to those who can’t conceive another route. It’s okay to not desire what others desire. Rejoice in making decisions that allow you to thrive in your authenticity. This isn’t a common choice, but maybe seeing you choose will help another choose themselves.
What does Laraya like this week:
🎥 What I’m watching: Tracee Ellis Ross is continually questioned on what it means for her to be single and childless at 50 years old. Listen to her speech on living for herself here.
📧 What’s I’m reading: De-influencer
is probably my favorite writer on Substack right now because many of her views on social media describe how I feel while I’m scrolling on these apps. Lee talked about how social media has distorted our view of success, which has impacted the way I view the creative aspects of my life. I’m currently writing a future newsletter post about how I view success for next week
Keep up with past posts of Sheer Creativity:
Have an amazing week 🧡